Congress failed to fulfil household electrification promise: PM Modi

"In 2005, the then Government promised to electrify every village by 2009". The then president of the ruling party (Congress) said they will bring electricity to every home. "Needless to say, none of that happened during their long tenure", said PM Modi.

He said that it was "unfortunate" that over 18,000 villages in the country were not electrified in last 70 years.

Prime Minister was interacting with citizens from villages that have been electrified in the last four years via the Narendra Modi Mobile App.

Modi asserted that numerous villages were electrified by the NDA government through Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, and Saubhagya (Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana) schemes. He said it was not easy to reach those villages but a dedicated team of people did it. One of the residents, Shivnath Singh Khader of Kahla village, even named his daughter "Deepika", to commemorate the day his village got electricity. This changed her life forever.

People from Tripura also expressed their happiness.

Modi said that the promises made by earlier governments were not fulfilled because there was not a serious leader, and now they (opposition) are finding faults with schemes and programmes being implemented by the present government.

The submission said the United Nations report also found there was a "lack of access to justice"; minors were being detained; communication was being blocked by government; curfews implemented; sexual assaults by Indian military were being reported and not investigated and medical services were being hampered due to the unrest.

The Saubhagya scheme was introduced while aiming to electrify about 3.6 crore unelectrified households by 31 March, 2019. During the "Power Ministers" Conference' in Shimla in July, power ministers of all states and Union Territories unanimously agreed on electrifying all households in the country by 31 December, 2018.